


Playing with Fire

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, One Shot, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Post-Volume 6 (RWBY), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 02:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18023399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: Neo gets bored on the flight over to Solitas. Cinder takes advantage of the situation.





	Playing with Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [RenaJay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaJay/pseuds/RenaJay/works) for having the misfortune to be roped into beta’ing this. If you haven’t read _[Speak Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640139)_ and _[All That Matters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12775587)_ , you should probably get to those first.

* * *

Neo was bored.

That wasn’t exactly surprising. It was a long way to Solitas, and the airship they’d appropriated didn’t exactly have much in the way of entertainment. No movies, no books, not so much as a deck of cards. Not like Neo really cared for any of the above, but their absences _were_ noticeable. The only thing that it _did_ have in abundance was space, more than enough for a strenuous daily regimen of gymnastics and acrobatics, keeping her body and mind busy for hours every day. But there was only so much a girl could run and jump and spin and flip, before her muscles started aching and her mind started wandering. By the first week of their journey, boredom had become as inescapable as a clutch of Apathy.

_‘I try my_ absolute _best not to let you get bored,’ he says with a teasing grin, running a hand through her hair. ‘For the collective wellbeing of everyone around us.’_

Neo didn’t exactly read much, or watch movies, or play games with cards or Scrolls. She’d come to accept that her mind just wasn’t wired for that, for the abstract distractions of ordinary folk. She’d never been able to sit through a movie, not really, even the ones Roman had picked out, heavy on “ _the old ultra-violence_ ” that he’d hoped could keep her attention. She could usually make it about twenty minutes before the urge to wriggles, squirm, _move_ got the best of her, even when she was wrapped beneath a blanket, wrapped within Roman’s arms…

...Nope. Neo hopped, skipped and jumped her way between the storage decks, collecting her coat from the corner she’d tucked it into. She didn’t exactly have too many worldly possessions - nothing that couldn’t be stuffed into a rucksack, certainly - but within her coat’s pocket was one of the few things she’d kept with her for… a while. She shrugged on the jacket, feeling for the object’s familiar weight through her pocket. It was light and cylindrical, as nondescript as any cosmetics tube. Yet another memento from Roman, this one from the earliest days of their (sexual) relationship, when hormones were running roughshod over them both and the thrill of discovery and exploration was almost overwhelming. She’d known little more about sex than a blushing Atlesian schoolgirl in those days, a deficiency in her education Roman had oh so nobly promised to personally correct.

Neo made her way to a small compartment tucked into the corner of the bulkhead, as abandoned as everything else beneath the upper decks. She’d already surveilled it many times before, wandered in and out, reconnoitered it as one of the more discreet recesses of the ship. Practically perfect.

_They’d done capital-S Sex first, unsurprisingly, all the vanilla positions before moving on to the more exotic ones. Everything that could be done with mouths and hands, giving and receiving. Rough and gentle, fast and slow. Roman had been nothing if not thorough when it came to discovering Neo’s preferences in the bedroom (or, on occasion, outside of it), and she’d been all too happy to oblige._

She’d have preferred to strip nude, but given present circumstances, that probably wasn’t worth the hassle. Neo found a backless bench in the middle of the room - a room she’d pretty sure had once been a locker room of sorts - which suited her needs just fine. No windows and only one entrance, not that she expected to be walked in on. Her traveling companion generally confined herself to the flight deck, and besides, Neo didn’t think that she’d need a lot of time. Her mind had been wandering back to Roman, to their nights together, to the fantasies he’d promised her.

Neo had felt guilty about doing this before, in those horrific months after Beacon. Getting a sexual thrill from the memory of a man who had died. She didn’t have a pious bone in her body, but something about it had felt… _sacrilegious_. Horniness usually won out over guilt, at least in the short-run, but the longer war was a harder one to win. That was, at least until she got herself thinking about what Roman would have wanted. She should have asked him, when they’d still had the time together, but she could guess his answer all the same…

She began rubbing between her legs, thinking of those moonless nights when he’d push her against the mattress, crawl over her, _claim_ what Neo was all too willing to _give_. Her body responded to the memory - or rather, the blurry collage of memories - in no time at all. In the here-and-now, she fumbled for the little gadget.

_‘Well, well, jilling off to ol’ Torchwick after I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil?’ he’d tease, twirling the handle of his cane. He cared even less for propriety than she did. And then he’d say with a grin: ‘What can I say, I’m simply_ flattered _at how you’re keeping my memory alive.’_

The bullet vibrator buzzed to life with a small hum, barely audible over the vibrations of the airship. Roman had picked it out for her when they’d first visited a sex shop together, before everything in their lives had gone to hell. It had actually been a business trip - a bit of retaliation against a proprietor behind on his loan repayments - but Roman had been sure to save some of ‘the good stuff’ before they’d set fire to the place. Which - in addition to the complete back catalogue of _Faunus Girls Unleashed_ , to Neo’s heavy eye-rolling - included a top-of-the-line piece of Atlas tech that for some reason was never featured in the consumer expos.

Neo never knew what the little vibrator actually cost, but it certainly wasn’t cheap. Precision engineering, reactive sensors, and a Dust-powered battery that could produce continuous stimulation for the better part of a year. Not that Neo had come close to testing that last advertising claim. But she could certainly vouch for the customer-satisfaction guarantee…

She worked familiar patterns with her free fingers, letting the vibrator do most of the heavy lifting. She’d long since calibrated it to her preferences, fine-tuned it to respond with her body’s natural rhythm. In no time at all Neo was, if not _in_ heaven, then certainly headed in the right direction.

She didn’t have elaborate fantasies, just a few fleeting images, half-remembered sensations. The feeling of being _pushed_ to the bed, the confidence of his motions, the all-but-overwhelming _desire_ that radiating from his every action. His torso, bare, looming above her, sweaty pectorals and glistening abs. The feeling of being wanted, _claimed_ , pure and primeval. Her nails sinking into his back as he _pressed-_

-something buried, deep in the animalistic recesses of her brain, screamed at Neo to _STOP-_

“-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Neo’s eyes shot open at the languorous tone of her one and only fellow passenger, a voice practically dripping with haughty amusement. There were many ways to read Cinder Fall’s expression, but ‘apologetic’ was certainly not one of them. She was still dressed in that elaborate top-and-cloak getup, peering at Neo with her one good eye. There was a thin curl to her lips, a flash of teeth. A child amused by some beast in the zoo.

Neo’s expression was significantly _less_ amused. She didn’t particularly care that she’d been _seen_ \- while no exhibitionist, she just didn’t care much for what other people thought of her - but the reality that Cinder had found her while she was, to some degree, _vulnerable_ …

...Neo belatedly realized that she the vibrator was still humming happily along, like a bee abuzz in spring. She flicked it off, and a very loud silence filled the room.

Cinder _tsk_ ed. “Oh, Neo, please don’t stop on my behalf,” she said in mock-plea, taking long and unhurried steps to close the distance between them. “I must say that I found your performance simply _enthralling_.”

Cinder was very, _very_ lucky that looks couldn’t kill (or at least, not looks from this _particular_ diminutive killing machine). Neo shifted her legs into a slightly more defensive posture as Cinder continued her advance, the heels of her boots _clicking_ loudly with every step. Neo’s partnership was Cinder was the very picture of ‘uneasy’, and Cinder’s serpentine stroll was doing nothing to reassure her. But there was something hypnotic about those movements, something that kept Neo rooted in her place.

“There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of stress relief,” Cinder purred, as one hand came to rest beneath the woman’s jaw. “But why play with toys when you can have the real thing?”

Neo’s whole body tensed, practically frozen, as her mind parsed the potentials of that touch. She’d have been lying if she’d claimed the thought had never crossed her mind. Cinder was, if nothing else, _striking_ , and she’d also been the only living thing Neo had seen in over a week. So, _yes_ , she’d thought about what it’d be like to be with Cinder. She was only human. But she’d never given those thoughts more than the weight of idle fancy, certainly never daydreamed that they’d end up…

...like _this_.

“We’re still days away from Atlas,” Cinder continued, sliding her body closer against Neo’s. Her skin felt, simply, like nothing Neo had ever felt before. “And I don’t see why we can’t mix business and pleasure.”

Neo let out the smallest of breaths, slinking lower into to the bench. Cinder pressed her advantage, with the calculated predation of a snake, until she was practically looming over the assassin.

Neo felt her heart pound against her chest, her throat dried out and clenched. There was no denying that Cinder Fall was, simply, _dangerous_. After learning what she’d learnt, Neo’s confidence that she could best the Maiden in a fight was at an all-time-low. Cinder was _powerful_. 

And for better or worse, Neo found that pretty fucking hot. And she was beginning to suspect it was obvious.

“Show me what you can do,” Cinder said, her mouth mere inches from Neo’s. Her tone wasn’t quite a command, but neither was it a request. Neo’s heart pounded in her chest, and whether out of pride, nervousness, or horniess, she felt moved to oblige.

She’d done this before for Roman, of course. Like most males of the species, he was an endless font of sexual fantasies, certainly never lacking for inspiration. And Neo had been all too happy to oblige. Some days she’d be a platinum blonde in bed, others a fiery redhead. Hair in a demure bun or flowing freely to her waist. She could change everything in the blink of an eye, _be_ whoever _he_ wanted her to be. Soldiers, schoolgirls, maids, Huntresses, cops, nurses, ninjas, nuns. People he knew from work, from school, from animated television shows. She’d never cared, because at the end of the day Roman hadn’t, either. Because he had wanted _her_.

The real woman, buried under so many layers of illusions and deceptions and re-imagined personas. He’d known the _real_ Neo, the girl beneath the name that was as fake as everything else about her. Would he-

_‘Wow, Neo, you got the fire-lady herself crawling all over you,’ he’d say, whistling low and long._ Of course he’d approve. _‘Let me know what riding a tiger is like.’_

Neo made her first move, recalling a face from those days when they’d all been… _together_ , for lack of a better word. Mint-green hair with a straight fringe and bangs, two locks spilling down her back. She darkened her skin and reddened her eyes, a top shimmered into existence over her chest.

While she hadn’t noticed herself (not being, particularly, a ‘people person’), Roman had expounded to her at length about the obvious feelings the young Miss Sustrai harbored towards their mutual employer. _‘Unrequited angst_ ’, was what it all boiled down to. Neo wasn’t sure _entirely_ what kind of a reaction her transformation would provoke from Cinder, but curiosity always got the better of her.

Her reward was a sly smile and small laugh. “ _Very_ impressive, Neo,” Cinder mused, gracile fingers reaching out to stroke those newly verdant strands. There was something undeniably studious in Cinder’s stare, the way she watched how the follicles behaved _exactly_ like the real thing. Neo’s chest rose and fell as Cinder’s nail traced a path down her skin, from her cheek to her throat to her breasts, pressing just hard enough to leave a fleeting white line along her flesh. “Though this is more her fantasy than my own.”

Neo shrugged, exhaling as she released the illusion, reverting to her normal form. For a minute she simply reveled in Cinder’s touch, at the Fall Maiden’s hand sliding up and down her skin with ever-increasing assertiveness.

“Shorten your hair,” Cinder finally instructed, and Neo obliged. It took more concentration than actual Aura, and she’d long since learned to ignore the tingling sensation that came with nerves being rewired on the fly. “More like a bob.”

Neo frowned but complied, closing her eyes as she tried to guess the hairstyle. She hated working without a mirror, but Cinder was doing something _magical_ with her fingers right now, and Neo wasn’t of the mind to interrupt her.

“A little longer…” Cinder murmured, and Neo shimmered and twitched and stretched. “Good, now…” the nail of Cinder’s thumb delicately scratched Neo’s clit. “Red highlights.”

It clicked. Oh. _Oh_.

So this was Cinder’s fantasy. The thought amused Neo (though she kept it from her face), and the remaining transformations came easily. Now that she had something to work with. Now that she knew that _this_ was a part of Cinder’s mind. The Fall Maiden’s ministrations ratcheted up a few degrees as Neo continued her transformation, drawing the process out by shifting one feature at a time.

It was a transformation Neo had practiced many times before. After witnessing what Emerald whatsername had done back at Beacon, she’d been inspired to refine her illusory abilities. Her illusions were imperfect - they wouldn’t hold up to forensic scrutiny, Roman had once warned her - but Neo could think of plenty of ways she could make Ruby Rose’s life _hell_ by assuming even an approximation of her form.

She changed her hair, her brow, her nose. Flushed her skin and shifted her cheekbones. Her outfit morphed into a Huntress’ garb, a billowing red cape splayed out underneath her. Even if the memory of their last encounter hadn’t been seared into Ruby’s mind, there’d been more than enough photos for Neo to make sure she got the details right.

“Change your eyes,” Cinder commanded.

Neo frowned. Eyes had always been the hardest for her. Her face scrunched up as she shifted _darker_. Her vision changed a little with every shift of her corneas, tweaks to her eyes’ lenses causing the world to focus and blur around her.

She felt a hand rest around her throat, and Neo let out a short gasp at the touch. While she’d never admitted it - not even to Roman - she certainly didn’t mind the feeling of a hand around her neck. She wasn’t into breathplay, or being choked, but the position added _just_ the right amount of danger, of _excitement_. Roman had been the only man she’d ever let do that, ever _wanted_ to do that. But Cinder’s touch-

“ _Change_ ,” Cinder repeated, and Neo’s whole face contorted in an effort to comply. The feeling between her legs was _incredible_ , and the sheer intensity of the sensation was pushing her Semblance to newfound levels. “Change, Ruby Rose...”

The whole room around them began transforming, as the fingers of Cinder’s free hand pushed _faster_ and _harder_. The airship’s compartment transformed into a facsimile of Beacon Academy’s dorms. Neo had only been there a handful of times, as part of her ephemeral disguise as one of Cinder’s Havenite teammates, but the recreation was near-perfect, from the paneling on the floors to the mid-afternoon sun streaming through the windows. 

“ _Ruby_ ,” Cinder hissed, her grip on Neo’s neck beginning to tighten. Neo’s breaths doubled, trebled, and Cinder’s nail _pressed_ into her clitoris, fusing agony and ecstasy. And Neo’s eyes - radiant, silver eyes - shot open, her mouth wide in a silent scream as she climaxed.

The orgasm rippled through her body, arching her back and curling her toes inside Ruby Rose’s combat boots. Cinder’s hands, her control, her assertiveness, had combined to create the most powerful climax Neo had had in months.

Her eyes drifted open again, searching for Cinder’s, wondering what the Fall Maiden would exact as her recompense. Whatever it was, Neo would be happy to oblige, because-

-it clicked in her mind, _very_ belatedly, that Cinder’s grip on her throat was tightening.

Cinder’s teeth were barred, her chest heaving in obvious excitement, on the brink of ecstasy. Suddenly every muscle in Cinder’s body seemed to go taut, like a constrictor beginning to kill its prey. Her face was oddly still, but Neo could see a fire burning in her gaze…

The struggle was brief, but not lacking in intensity. Neo - still clad in the image of Ruby Rose - tried to wriggle free of Cinder’s grip, but there was no give or slack to be found. The illusory Beacon around them began to shimmer and blur, before seeming to blink out of existence like a glitched Scroll game. Cinder didn’t notice, however, so focused was she on the woman beneath her, or rather, the fantastical image of her. Little pinpricks were appearing in Neo’s vision as she began running out of air…

With a wordless grunt, Neo spun her legs and her hips, hooking a leg cross-wise around Cinder’s chest. Cinder was too focused, too _lost_ , to think much about what Neo was doing, and Neo used her leg as leverage, prying herself free from Cinder’s grip.

She fell off the bench and on to the deck of the airship, coughing violently as her lungs greedily sucked in air. Neo felt a brief wave of nausea, and for a second she thought she was going to vomit, though the sensation quickly passed. Still heaving, Neo wiped tears that were fogging her vision, relieved to see she was no longer veiled with Rose’s image.

Cinder stood up, casting a disdainful look at the woman in front of her. Neo’s eyes shot daggers right back at her, as she pulled herself to her feet with none of her usual grace. The two stood in silence for several seconds, hormones flushing through their systems.

“When we _do_ find Ruby Rose,” Cinder began, enunciating every syllable, “you will _not_ get in my way. Do I make myself clear?”

Neo said nothing, communicated nothing, simply glared at Cinder, forcing herself to take steadying breaths through her nostrils. Her heart rate slowed to its more usual rhythm, her eyes flickered between pink and brown.

Cinder turned and walked out without another word.

Neo steadied herself, rubbing her neck as she did. She winced at her own touch, recognizing the sting of singed flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I got this idea stuck in my head. Not _entirely_ happy with it, but might as well put it out there.
> 
> Thank you for your readership. Please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, feedback, or headcanons in the comments. Criticism is the only way I’ll ever get better as a writer. If you’d like to know more about me/my writing, feel free to hit up my [About](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/about) page. I’m also active on both [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/overview) and [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/), and can be reached through any of the means on my [Contact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/profile) page.


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